


Human

by Life_giver



Category: Loveless
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-14
Updated: 2014-08-14
Packaged: 2018-02-13 01:41:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2132355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Life_giver/pseuds/Life_giver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was a sacrifice after all and if Natsuo had ever wanted him to bleed like the others they had defeated, he would have laid himself down willingly for him. Natsuo was the only one he had never hated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Human

He holds the piece of glass up between thumb and forefinger and turns it so that the light reflects off of it prettily. It's a nice colored glass, a broken blue shard from a stained glass window. If he listens hard enough, he can still hear it breaking, shattering against the pavement as he stood slack-jawed and utterly motionless.

"Natsuo," He mutters, turning the shard of glass again and smiling as he catches the reflection of a dark green eye, a flame of deep red, lips that tilt in the corner. It's a mirror image of his own mouth, all at once mild and sadistic.

"Stupid." He presses the glass to his lips and closes his eyes.

"I was the sacrifice. It was supposed to be me. Idiot." He sucks in a breath, lets it out slowly and watches the glass fog and blot out the image of Natsuo's last smile.

But Natsuo always came back to him in other ways, smiling up at him from the depths of his bitter coffee, in still standing water, in the mirror in the bathroom. There was nowhere that he could go that Natsuo wouldn't be because they had always been connected at the hip, two halves of the same whole, and wherever he went, Natsuo's shade would follow. And what a beautiful shade it was, because Natsuo had always been too pretty for his own good.

Nagisa had always favored Youji, doted on him, stroked the hair that fell past his waist in a river of silk, but it was all an illusion. He had the pretty pointed, doll face of her sister, the same light hair, the same large lilac eyes, but he wasn't her sister, would never be. Her sister hadn't been an unfeeling thing born in a lab, poked and prodded and then used as a tool for destruction.

Youji had always been something abnormal and twisted, he knew, but he'd always chose to bask in the powers he'd been given. After all, he had had Natsuo by his side since as long as he could remember, holding tight to his hand, trailing him, smiling up at him with that soft, petulant...wicked mouth. They could endure being the twisted freaks they were as long as they stayed locked together.

Beautiful Natsuo, pretty as a girl so that he was mistaken for one on many occasions. He could have been a shadow for all Nagisa had been concerned. He had always been easily discarded if she got the urge to do so, and the only reason she ever suffered his presence was that he was the essential part of a unit, the fighter to Youji's sacrifice.

  
Maybe that was what had made Natsuo cling to him so fiercely, out of some fear that he would be abandoned one day. But that had never crossed Youji's mind...that he could let go of Natsuo's hand and let his steps take him away. He had loved Natsuo, still felt the ache in his chest when he pressed his fingers there, because feelings never died as easy a death as creatures did.

He only figured that clawing need, the over-protectiveness, the night sweats, and the want to dig his fingers beneath Natsuo's exterior and pull the same need from his small body, was what people called love. He had been made to take the brunt of damage for Natsuo. Sacrifice was ingrained into his flesh among the scars and bruises, and loyalty was something that had been placed into him, like a tracking chip in a dog. It bound him to Natsuo completely, but there was a part of him that over-rode the sacrifice in him, that side that wanted to take Natsuo in his arms and kiss him and use him in ways that had nothing to do with fighting.

Of course he had never truly understood things like love and pain and all the other emotions and sensations that came with being human...because they had never been human. But the day that Nagisa had made them so, was the day his eyes began to open...and finally...finally, he understood.

"You're both useless to me now anyway." Her eyes had been cold, peering out of that child-like face.

"This could be another experiment of sorts..."

She had pulled on the curls lying over her shoulder, twirled them around a slender finger as she surveyed them. The girls had stood behind her, arms crossed over their chests and they all seemed to be in on this together, though their female counterparts were just as expendable as they were. The first generation zeros were just as flawed in the most important ways and yet Nagisa still found use in them.

Soon, Nagisa would become tired of them, or they would displease her in some way that they already hadn't, and she would turn them out and go back to the drawing table. The girls had become lovers as sure as Natsuo and Youji had and in Nagisa's eyes, that weakened them all. She had always held out on the belief that one day she would create the perfect beings. Kouya, Yamato, Natsuo, and Youji had only been the first of many mistakes, the blueprints for newer generations of Zeros that would be faster, more indestructible....completely invincible and _loyal _.__ And none of them would feel pain.

"I want it," Natsuo had whispered, trembling in Youji's arms, his eyes full of that same crazed light they got when he fought, using Youji as his puppet, the bait.

"Do you even know what this is?" Youji had whispered back, lips pressed to the soft, deep red of Natsuo's hair, and his fingers had trembled on a cheek that was pale, but fevered.

Of course they hadn't known what it was to feel pain, and yet he had wanted it just as much as Natsuo. He had wanted to feel something other than this cold that seemed to penetrate to the bones. He had been tired of being numb....he had wanted to become human.

And so back to the lab they went. The cold press of the needle sliding into the skin of his arm was familiar, the bright lights almost comforting. This was where he had begun after all, with a chilly metal table beneath his back and that overhead light piercing through his eyelids, making everything a fleshy red. The soft press of Natsuo's hand in his own had been an anchor, and they had remained that way throughout the entire procedure, Natsuo's fingers curling, spasming against his own.

He wipes the condensation from the sliver of glass and peers through it again until he can see Natsuo sitting on the barstool across the room, swinging his legs and bouncing the stuffed bear in his lap in that childish way he had about him. If they hadn't been part of this world of fighter and sacrifice, they would have been the equivalent of children on the verge of adulthood, he supposed. But they had never been children, had never known the innocence of childhood fantasies and toys and puppies.

The day Natsuo had gouged his own eye out to see what pain felt like, was the day Nagisa had placed that teddy bear in his hands. She had smiled as he laid back against the examining table, hugging the bear to his chest and allowing the eyepatch to cover the space where his pretty green eye had been.

Natuso had smiled back at her the entire time, a cherry lollipop hanging from the corner of his cherub mouth. Such a pretty, serene smile that anyone looking in would have thought he'd just had a little checkup at the doctor's office. The thought had run through Youji's mind as he sat cleaning the congealed blood from under Natsuo's pearly nails.

"I don't understand it," Natsuo had murmured, head pillowed against Youji's chest that night as they lay curled around each other in bed.

"Why do they scream when they die?"

Youji had shrugged, truly lost as to what pain was and why the people they had killed over the years emitted such ugly sounds from the backs of their throats and why they cried when their other half was killed. Such an odd thing to do, to let moisture seep from the corners of the eyes. Sometimes it slipped into their mouths and mixed with the blood. Youji couldn't connect anything with tears at that time, hadn't understood them anymore than he understood pain or death.

He can still feel the wet press of Natuso's mouth against his lips, fragrant and tasting of cherry lollipops and an innocence that had never been lost because he had never had it to lose. They had enjoyed kissing during the night before they fell asleep.It was an act that left them satisfied without risking Nagisa's anger.

He runs his fingers over the top of his head now where soft, downy ears had once been and he smiles at the thought of how he had lost them. They had always been good at breaking rules. Natsuo's excuse had been that it would bring them closer, and it did in ways that had Youji digging crescent marks into the palms of his hands with his fingernails.

If they'd been Nagisa's unit at the time, she would have flown around in a rage, tearing at her delicate curls because Youji had once been her prize, her sister come back to haunt her. But they had been in exile at the time, and rules had been ripe for breaking.

Through the shard of glass he can see Natsuo's teddy bear sitting on the counter. One of its arms is partially ripped, hanging by delicate threads. He had almost asked Soubi to sew it back up for him. Soubi was good at stupid domestic things like that. But the thought of leaving this house where he'd last been with Natsuo had his stomach turning. He didn't want to face a world full of people he disliked, and he still wasn't human enough to put a mask on and pretend. He would have tried killing every last one of them.

In his mind's eye, Natsuo slips from the barstool and comes bounding over to Youji. He throws himself onto the bed and for a moment Youji is bouncing, rocking before Natsuo settles down beside him and kisses his cheek. His mind is so good at pulling up illusions and trying to convince him they're real. But he knows that Natsuo isn't really there. He's growing cold and rotting in the ground somewhere, down there with his beloved insects and smooth, cool dirt.

During the funeral, he had almost placed the teddy bear in Natsuo's arms where it seemed most natural but then realized he was still as selfish as he'd ever been before Nagisa had given him the human gift of pain, and so he had snatched the bear back and walked off with it, salt spilling into the corner of his mouth. So that was why humans cried. Pain was a fist in the gut, so fierce and breathtaking that it was all one could do not to crumple to the ground and die. Instead, they settled on hot tears slipping down their necks and they hoped that that was enough.

"I will always protect you," Natsuo whispers against his ear, smiling, clutching the sleeve of his shirt.

Natsuo had uttered that once after the bone-jarring fight they had lost to Soubi and Ritsuka. Natsuo would always use the most brutal of attacks under Youji's demands, and when Youji was hit with the same or worse, it was crippling, but without pain, he never much cared. He had never wanted to die, and all that mattered truly was that Natsuo wouldn't let him be killed in the end. And he never had. Natsuo was the perfect sentouki.

"Because I love you." Even cruel children ripping the legs off insects and laughing could love. Natsuo was proof of that.

The moments after Nagisa's final experiment on them were now as scattered and fragmented as the glass that had rained down around Natsuo that last day together. It comes in flashes and slivers and pain. There had been a sensation behind Youji's eyes that he had never before felt as he sat up and swung his legs over the examining table.

His entire body had been alive with this new discovery, as potent as the pleasure he and Natsuo had gotten from their stolen kisses. Pinpricks burst behind his eyes, in his forehead, as he stared at the bright lights above him, and Natsuo's hand had squeezed tight, small nails digging into his palm....and _there_... that had been pain.

 _Pain_. He had become intimate with that word over the next few weeks as Natsuo went on holiday discovering its very core and Youji had trailed behind him, jerking his fighter's hands away from stove top burners, slipping knives from playful hands. Natsuo had treated it like a game, testing the scale of pain as he had once tested pleasure with Youji pinned beneath him in the sheets of their bed. The stubbing of his toe against the door had had Natsuo crumbling against the floor and cursing, and he swore to Youji that that had been the worst sort of pain, trumping the cuts and burns he inflicted on himself.

"It hurts," Natuso had muttered between gritted teeth as Youji pried a knife from between his fingers, but not before a thin red line had welled up against the inside of his arm. Youji had leaned down to brush away the tears forming at the corner of Natuo's eyes and when he had pressed his lips there, Natuso had tilted his head back and sighed. Youiji had never been very good at resisting temptation.

"And that...that feels nice."

Natuso's lips would always find his own in those moment of pain laced pleasure and as Natsuo went along discovering their new-found human pain, while Youji struggled with his own twisted addiction...the taste of Natsuo's mouth and his want for more than gentle kisses.

He turns to Natsuo's wandering shadow now, the ghost he could never quite bring himself to banish, and he watches him through the sliver of glass. Natsuo curls against his side, small hands tucked beneath his head in sleep, and he remembers the nights he had spent watching him like this.

"When are you going to sleep?" Natsuo would murmur, just on the verge of slipping away into his own personal land of dreaming.

But Youji had never been very good at sleeping. When he laid his head down at night, there were bright lights and cold needles and Nagisa's even colder hands against his temples, lulling him into unconsciousness, down into nightmares where hands would dissect him, take him apart piece by piece because he was only a machine, and machines became obsolete in time.

Units lost their worth and were replaced at fevered whims in Nagisa's world. Sometimes he had dreamed that Natsuo had been taken away from him, or that Natsuo had lost a fight, failed in protecting him, and failure meant death to him. Nagisa no longer needed them after all, had given them their final wish and set them free....abandoned them in the wild, and set the crown of mortality on their heads. He understood death well enough by now. Death was the end of everything.

"We can do whatever we want now. Nagisa doesn't need us anymore," Natsuo had whispered against Youji's lips one particular night and Youji's stomach had done a slow turn. They were free to do whatever their hands desired in the deep darkness of Soubi's bedroom and that frightened him.

The sound of Ritsuka's quiet breathing in the bed across the room hadn't deterred Natsuo from slipping his hands down the sides of Youji's neck. When teeth nipped at the bounding pulse just under his jawline, he had felt pain and his mind had flashed _danger_. But Natsuo hadn't continued his sadistic game of inflicting pain, only pressed his tongue to the abused flesh and then smiled.

"I can feel you," Natsuo had murmured, hips settling between Youji's legs and Youji's face had burned in the darkness. Natsuo had discovered his tainted secret. And yet he had begged Natsuo for more with his hands in his pajamas bottoms.

"And this....how does this feel?" Natsuo had pressed the words to his chest and all Youji could do was cover his face and groan, sinking beneath those human sensations, those petty desires, that weakness. Nagisa had kept them numb and celibate for a reason. They had been powerful once, without the taint of human emotions and needs. They had become polluted things in those last weeks together, full of lust for one another, and the need to feel.

Soubi had found them the morning after Natsuo had decided to break the rules. They had been tangled in the sheets and smelling of sex, and utterly without those cumbersome contraptions on their heads that were like blinking road signs, announcing chastity or corruption to the world. It was none of anyone's business as far as Youji was concerned. Soubi had only eyed them flippantly and then went about pulling the bed covers over Ritsuka's bird bone shoulders. His concerns had always laid elsewhere.

Natsuo and Youji had only been the inconvenient pests he'd allowed room and board out of pity. They could do what they liked as long as they kept their dirty hands off of Ritsuka and didn't eat in the bathtub. It was why he and Natsuo had decided to play nice with Soubi. There was respect somewhere beneath the practical jokes and bratty teasing, and twisted sexual innuendo.

"Hey Natsu, did you really love me?" He asks his small, curled companion and when that green eye looks up at him through the shard of glass between his fingers, Youji's heart catches in his throat.

"Of course I did, you idiot."

"Then why did you leave me?" His voice sounds weak and childish, and Natsuo doesn't answer him, only shrugs and buries his face back down into the pillows, fingers clutching Youji's shirt, hair a fiery mess against the white sheets. When he takes the glass away from his eye, the bed beside him is as empty as it always is.

They must have known that they couldn't survive out here in this world. They had been Nagisa's creation, her pets, and without her, they were only a lost fighter and sacrifice, raining destruction down on themselves and everyone around them. They would never have a place out here in respectable society.

"Tell him to stop bleeding on my carpet," Soubi would growl from behind his paint easel most mornings when they had lived here together and Youji would sigh in those moments and gather Natsuo in his arms, tapping lightly at the backs of his hands to get him to drop the razor blade or whatever other sharp object he'd used in his pain testing methods. But he would always join Natsuo in laughing as Kio face-planted for the umpteenth time that week into some sticky creation they'd put together in Soubi's kitchen.

They were children in that aspect. It was always funny when someone hurt themselves. Or when they hurt them, of course. They had never been very good at making friends for the one small problem that no one really liked them. They were only tolerated and then cast aside when they became too annoying, but that was alright. They had only ever needed one another after all.

But then Natsuo had went off and got himself almost cut in half, ironic knowing his love of sharp things and warm blood. Youji can almost taste the blood in his mouth as he tries not to remember. He swallows the iron laced blood down, and instead brings up the taste of Natsuo's skin in the middle of the night.

Natsuo had always been sensitive to things like selfish pleasure but when they'd become adept at feeling pain as well, Natsuo had become insatiable. He would tear at Youji's clothes, leave teeth marks and blood bruises against his neck and chest, and Youji had only been a helpless spectator in those moments. He would try to keep up with Natsuo's hunger but in the end, he would lay back against the sheets and let Natsuo do whatever he wanted. He was a sacrifice after all and if Natsuo had ever wanted him to bleed like the others they had defeated, he would have laid himself down willingly for him. Natsuo was the only one he had never hated.

He can still feel Natsuo's small pinky finger hooked around his own as they promised one another one flippant thing after another with hushed voices.

"Promise me you'll stay."

_Always._

"Promise me you'll make them bleed."

_Of course._

"Promise me.....promise me you'll follow me wherever I go."

Natuso's voice hangs in the air, and then is pierced through by Natsuo's soft giggling. _If you die, then I'll follow you,_ had always been Natsuo's favorite little morbid thing to whisper into Youji's ear during their ritual of promising one another the world. Of course they'd always secretly thought that Youji would be the first one to croak during a fight, and Natsuo would have no problem sinking something sharp into his wrist if that were to ever happen. He loved to hurt. Youji wasn't so keen on Romeo and Juliet endings and was a coward in that way.

Soubi for all his faults had kept a watchful eye on him lately, and even Ritsuka and his brooding little cloud over his head would wander over and sit on Youji's bed during the night. Sometimes he thought of pulling Ritsuka down into the sheets with him and taking what Soubi wouldn't or couldn't just yet.

Ritsuka was small and pretty like Natsuo had been, with that same blank intensity behind his dark eyes. There was a fire there if you looked hard enough, a sadistic vengeance, but only people of a like mind could recognize it. To any other passerby, it seemed that Risuka was just uninterested in everything around him and always on the verge of yawning. But Youji knew better. Ritsuka would kill for the people he loved if he was pushed to it. That kind of loyalty excited Youji.

Yet he had promised Soubi that he wouldn't touch. In a world where only his promises to Natsuo had mattered, he was strangely adept at keeping his word to Soubi. After all, Ritsuka would never be Natsuo. Natsuo would laugh at him if he had been around to see Youji lusting after their resident dark cloud. Natsuo would have loved it, would have devised a plan to catch Ritsuka unawares and have him between them before Soubi could even blink an eye. Natsuo had only ever truly cared about two things, himself and Youji. The rest was all background noise.

The house is empty today as he lazes around, peering through the blue shard of glass and remembering better times. Soubi had taken Ritsuka to the fair that morning and he dreaded when they would get home, all rosy cheeked and laughing. Ritsuka would be smiling that rare smile, face tilted up to his adoring fighter and they'd leave the evidence scattered on the kitchen counter; countless glossy photos of their day together.

Youji would sulk and scowl and peer down at the photos when temptation became too much and he knew he'd see windblown blond hair and cotton candy and ice-cream smudged cheeks and that one photo where Soubi had stolen a kiss....tucking it into the corner of Ritsuka's candy sticky mouth.

It would be enough to make him sick, but that last photo would tease the sadist in him at least. He knew the torture Soubi went through with Ritsuka as his sacrifice, the things he could and couldn't do with that little ball of sunshine. It would be enough to make Youji smile the slightest bit and drop the photos back onto the counter. Natsuo would have laughed and suggested they catch Soubi unawares during the night to cure him of his infinite loneliness. Youji would have considered it.

Natuso had always hated the fair, would sulk and make faces when Youji pulled him there on a whim. But Youji enjoyed taking Natsuo on the Ferris wheel and kissing him near the top, loved the smell of popcorn and sugar on the air, even enjoyed the little children running by until Natsuo happened to yawn and stick a foot out to trip them. He liked that even more when the children looked up at him with tear stained faces and blood on their little scraped palms. He would never be human no matter the blood running through his veins.

He's all synthetic right down to the smile he forces as he presses the piece of blue glass to the palm of his hand and makes red. Nagisa had turned him into even more of a monster than he'd been before. At least before he had been numb to everything while going about his pathetic little life. He had never had to pretend to be anything other than what he was back then- just an unfeeling machine, someone's tool for destruction.

He feels tears pricking the corners of his eyes and there's that annoying feeling at the back of his throat again as if everything is tightening there until he's forced to do something about it. He lets out a miserable whine, muffles it into the palm of his hand and tastes copper on his lips.

"Don't cry," He hears Natsuo's voice, small and childish like the hands that pet the hair hanging down into his face.

"Crying is for babies and you know how we hate _those_."

"I couldn't follow you," He whispers, reaching back, fingers searching for their twins and finding nothing but chilly air. He grasps the sheets around his naked shoulders and peers out at the wide empty room in front of him. Everything is clinical white, sterile white like Nagisa's home had been. The only dabbles of color come from the few paintings Soubi felt proud enough of to hang on the wall, mostly at Ritsuka's insistence.

There was one dripping watercolor of Ritsuka holding Natsuo's teddy bear by the torn leg. The colors ran down in rivulets as if the painting were crying. It's a sad picture and he suddenly wants to rip it down. He growls and throws the shard of glass at the painting and when that isn't enough, he takes the thing down from the wall and hurls that across the room as well.

 _Anger_. That's another vice he hasn't learned to deal with. Another human part of him he wishes he didn't have. And shame, that's just another one he feels like a slap to the face every day now. He'd never had any shame before- touching Natsuo whenever he liked, even when he knew he shouldn't, laughing as he watched someone's sacrifice struggling and on the brink of death from one of their spells. He had only known a childish delight, a selfish amusement at the pain of others.

But now he felt shame down to the very core of his body. He was ashamed that he'd never known what it was to lose something he cared about, and he was even more ashamed that he wasn't brave enough to honor a promise given long ago with his pinky finger hooked to Natsuo's.

"I love you more than Nagisa. I love you more than anything," Natsuo had once told him, small, wet hands framing Youji's face as they lounged and ate sweets in Soubi's bathtub. It had made Youji's heart flutter to know that Natsuo's bond with him had deepened to the point of going against Nagisa.

It was obvious as Youji pulled Natsuo to him, wet and trembling, that Nagisa had failed once again. They were imperfect and as flawed as the first generation Zeros. They loved one another above their purpose in this world. The only thing that Nagisa had accomplished was creating a unit that delighted in the pain of others. They'd never learned the word _mercy_.

There was a shame in that as well. Youji felt it now as he looked down to the painting he had destroyed. There was a long, jagged tear across the front of it, cutting Ritsuka's arm at the wrist, severing Natsuo's teddy bear as easily and as suddenly as Natsuo had been torn from Youji.

"I promise," He whispers to the still air around him, to Natsuo's ghost who stands now in the corner watching him with a damning eye.

And yet he leaves that promise to another day as he picks the painting up and hangs it back on the wall. He tilts his head and stares at the jagged mess it has become until he feels Natsuo's fingers curl around his hand. He smiles and picks the shard of blue glass from the floor and finds Natsuo's upturned face in it. There's a crack in the glass from its impact with the painting and floor and Natsuo's face is slightly warped now, his smile almost grotesque. He sighs in exhaustion and slips the glass back into his pocket and feels that uncomfortable tightening of his chest he'd only ever experienced around Natsuo.

In his mind's eye he sees Natsuo falling backward, arm flung out to catch hold of Youji's hand, but it had been too late at that point. That vivid red had already been spreading across his sailor suit, darkening blue to black and the light had gone out of Natsuo's eyes so quickly. Such an unnecessary way to go. Such a useless fight when they had known that their places within Nagisa's world had already been replaced. They should have fought against that natural urge in them to find a place in the world.

Youji had known for a while that the only place they would ever truly belong was with each other and yet Natsuo had realized that too late. They had never belonged in this world. It should have been Youji that was the first to go if either of them had to sacrifice themselves for a useless cause. But Natsuo had always been stubborn, couldn't let Youji have the spotlight for very long. He would go first if anyone was going. During their last fight, Natsuo had used his new-found anger against what he thought was an injustice to them. To have been created for someone else's use and to have been devoid of what made someone human for all those years together had haunted Natsuo to his very last breath.

But in the end, he had died like a human, in pain, and like those fragile creatures, Youji had been left to mourn and waste away with only memories for company. The one thing that Youji didn't regret was that they had known pain, and pleasure, and _love_ in those last months together. It was the only comfort he had now. And one day when he was less cowardly and a little braver the way Natsuo had been, perhaps he'd honor his promise to Natsuo. In the meantime, he would continue on living a life that was undoubtedly and painfully, _human_. 


End file.
